One-Time Disclaimer: IT © Stephen King.

Notes: So, after some debate, I decided to start another AU!IT collection, for those that might not necessarily fit the good!AU framework of ITerations as I know it. Not to be updated as frequently, but that depends largely on whether anyone would like to send ideas my way.

Ratings and genres to vary with every entry. And as with the main collection, these are intended to be platonic and smut free.

See the rest of the fandom if you want that.

Prompts are still welcome!

And here's the first, as suggested by justareader1014 at AO3.

AU 1989: It adopts a five-year-old Beverly Marsh.

"Proxy"

K+ (for nonexplicit child abuse)

Again.

Alvin Marsh had done it again.

The repugnant notion alone was enough to turn the creature's stomach. For better or worse, his hyperaware senses couldn't and didn't spare him any details as to what had gone on in the Marsh household the previous night.

And, as misguidedly as ever, It had just hoped he had heard wrong.

Hoping alone wasn't doing young Beverly Marsh any favors.

Time after time they met, and almost every time he found she had more cuts, more bruises, more hurts than the eye could see that were in need of mending.

Funny how, in the span of a few short weeks, she had come to latch onto him so desperately. Whatever compassionate side the creature had shown, she was so starved for care, it must have seemed like a prayer she hadn't thought to give had been answered.

No one else in Derry seemed to want to bat an eye, only he.

But this was going from batting an eye to lifting a finger about the problem, metaphorically speaking.

And once it was, one finger would mean reaching in with the whole hand.

Then there would be no going back.

If 'there' hadn't come and gone already.

"Can't I stay with you?"

Pennywise's blue eyes opened, pupils shrinking in abject alarm, and he almost jolted away.

Now there was a proposal he hadn't counted on hearing.

Not today, not ever.

He couldn't very well jolt away at the moment, though. The girl was clinging onto him with both arms, face pressed deep into his favorite form's suit. Muffled as her words were against his torso, he was as certain he had heard them correctly.

He was as sure as he was certain that bandage on Beverly's elbow hadn't been there yesterday.

Still, this was a bit sudden. A few playdates down by the canal, a Sunday rendezvous in the Barrens, and suddenly the girl thought It was the solution to all her Daddy troubles?

Unthinkingly, Pennywise shook his head, banishing that sardonic thought with a low growl.

Then the rational part of his brain caught up to his form's animalistic reaction.

A second later, he realized how, in doing so, he had sent Beverly the exact wrong message.

Sniffling, she reared back and peered desperately up at him. Those clear blue eyes were filled to the brim and threatening to spill over anew.

"Please?"

Sitting beside her on the secluded riverbank, Pennywise belatedly thought to get up, and to back away, just a short distance, crouching on his hands and booted feet.

"Bevs, you- you can't mEan that."

"I do, though," the girl whined, hands clasping before her. She sat on her hip, a stone's throw from being on her knees, the very definition of pleading. "Please?"

Pennywise glanced away, trying not to listen as she gave another dismayed whimper at the sight. He was mindful not to sigh, to fret visibly, to let his expression change otherwise.

And while his mind raced with hundreds of tangling strands of thought, they all seemed to gyrate around the following thread:

You can't.

You're not human.

You can't give her the attention she needs.

Well, maybe.

No.

She has needs.

Human. Needs.

Human needs.

Needs that won't be taken care of if you send her back.

Natural selection, dolt.

Some sprouts grow up, some don't.

Sure, the neglected ones least of all.

She doesn't deserve that.

It's not about 'deserving' anything.

That's just life.

Life, which is a lot easier to get through when you have someone on your side.

Oh?

You know you can do better? Better than anyone of her own kind could?

No, but...

I can't... just let her go, either.

The soft ting of a bell interrupted his inner voices there.

At that, Pennywise did sigh, quietly and slowly, through his nose.

He hadn't moved, hadn't turned one way or another.

Something had run into him, a soft, inconsequential weight that rocked him back for just a moment.

He let his eyes drop halfway shut, then looked down.

"Bevs..."

She said nothing. Or might have, and it couldn't be as clearly discerned as before. Too busy latching on again, the girl's tear-streaked face was hidden. Nuzzling close, she sought refuge in the warm space between his form's collar and chest.

Safely out of her view, Pennywise allowed himself a tortured-looking scowl.

Beverly hadn't seemed at all the clingy type when they had met a few short weeks ago.

But now, with today's dilemmas rearing their ugly heads, she had caved to her own inner desires.

It wasn't just food she was being deprived of at home.

For a fleeting second, the creature lamented his own foolishness. There was a reason he maintained his distance from humanity for all this time. First and foremost being, that forming bonds of any kind would mean keeping them.

They were a curious species, humans. Occasionally, he walked among them, wearing a face that called itself Robert Gray. It was a generic enough name, and he played the part accordingly.

That was what kept humans on top, compared to this planet's other species. Sociability was at once their advantage and their weakness. It didn't seem to take long for them to establish social ties, but under the right conditions, said ties tended to last the entirety of their lives.

Lives, for they were mortal.

And It was not.

Then came Beverly Marsh.

Even now, he couldn't put a finger on what exactly it was about her. What had first drawn them to each other. For as long as he could remember, It awoke every twenty-seven years to simply toil and feed and store up energy for his next hibernation.

Until now, sating a need he didn't even know he was in possession of - interaction - it hadn't been factor before.

And therein lay the rub. While he could take any shape, that didn't mean he was the best choice to bring up a wayward tyke such as she.

Like this form, now. There wasn't exactly a hidden circus below Derry, Maine he could whisk her away to, no happy ending like in a fairy tale. And even if there was, who knew if it was in Beverly's best interests, anyway?

In some ways, he was as clueless as Alvin Marsh.

Primary difference being, where Alvin didn't care to do anything about this, It did.

Whatever internal-debate-born counterlogic he threw at the problem wouldn't just make it go away.

He had to ask.

"BeverLy."

At some gentle prodding, she eased back into view, twisted around to look at him.

Her arms never lost their grip.

Her eyes were just as beseeching as before.

That time, It didn't sigh. Or growl. Or look away.

He couldn't.

Instead, haltingly, he raised one long arm and gently wrapped it around her thin back, thumb stroking her shoulder as they gazed at one another.

Her left eye to his right.

Staring at her, siphoning more than just her distress and despondent emotions away, it gave him time to adjust.

He blinked, revealing irises that had lightened up to that same clear, cerulean shade.

"Are you... suRe?"

Beverly stared at him. Her silence was almost hypnotic in its own right.

Talking hadn't gotten her what she wanted.

So she just nodded.

Making her his own didn't take much.

A few tweaked papers here and there.

Her birth certificate went missing as the records room of Derry's hospital changed floors.

Her short-lived school records went up in flames, as the box they sat in was mistakenly selected for disposal.

Some casual memories she had left in the minds of passersby, those erased by time's passing alone.

Rounding these alternation out were the little adjusted proof percentage levels on an otherwise-benign case of beer, purchased by one Alvin Marsh.

That turned out to be far stronger than he anticipated.

Pining after the 'loss' of his daughter, he would unknowingly drink himself into oblivion.

The certificate of death would simply be filled in as "acute alcohol poisoning".

With these things out of the way, it was like Beverly Marsh had never existed.

She did.

To It.

And - for both of them - that was all that mattered.